Lucca Ilena shoe store designed by Ryutaro Matsuura

Interior designer Ryutaro Matsuura used the see-through wire panels and a neutral palette to create an environment that puts all the emphasis on the shoes.
"When the differences of surrounding decorative environment are suppressed, the items themselves begin to enhance their presence," he explains.Shoes are displayed on translucent shelves made from a honeycomb resin sandwich, attached to floor-to-ceiling columns of different circumferences.

Matsuura describes the interior as a "shoe forest", with "the merchandise hovering like fruits on trees".

The design gives equal prominence to each product and allows customers to navigate the displays without overbearing design elements influencing their purchasing decision.Nendo recently designed a store in New York for Spanish brand Camper with white resin shoes covering the walls and we spoke to Miguel Fluxá, head of Camper, who told us why they use different designers for each of their stores.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Stores tend to be composed of wall shelves and display tables. In those cases, the priority levels for the items at the store and the flows of customers would be set by the sellers. And hence the selection behaviours of the customers tend to be controlled.

So that made us create a pleasant space where customers can find the goods they have hoped for without bias. That was the birth of the shoe store studded with the same C-shaped wire mesh fixtures.

The fixtures have translucent loose shelves for shoes that are made of honeycomb sandwich resin panels. The merchandise hovering like fruits on trees shows its presence in the store that can be described as a “shoe forest”. Customers can enjoy meeting the merchandise and feel a sense of exaltation.

When the differences of surrounding decorative environment are suppressed, the items themselves begin to enhance their presence. Therefore we think that spontaneous perceptions would be educed from
customers. And then, imagination and curiosity of the customers would be getting large.

Those feelings will provide a motivation for customers to approach each item, and they will have an opportunity to find the item that really suits. That is what we are expecting.